The Pavilion dv7t is one of HP's "entertainment powerhouse" notebooks, just one step down from the ludicrously oversize 20-inch HDX. Beyond the 17-inch screen, and under the cool "liquid metal" exterior, lies Intel's new Centrino 2 processor. The result: high-octane performance in an extremely shiny package.

The dv7t, with its 2.53-GHz Core 2 Duo T9400 processor and 3GB of RAM, turned in a blazing score of 98 in our WorldBench 6 tests. Interestingly, MicroExpress's identically stacked all-purpose machine, the JFL9226, earned a mark of 103.

The dv7t's nVidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics card makes this laptop a better gaming rig than many other portables. It produced an impressive 152 frames per second in our Doom 3 and Far Cry tests (and a respectable 95.26 fps with antialiasing turned on).

Battery life was 3 hours, 1 minute, not bad for an 8.4-pound unit with a 17-inch screen. If only we could see the screen a little better. In a typical fluorescent-lit office, viewing the display is hard. Even when ratcheted all the way up, the huge screen was not very bright--not what you'd expect from a high-end machine. Compared with the display of a 15.4-inch HP Pavilion DV6000t, in fact, the dv7t's screen was grayish. That said, the dullness shouldn't impede enjoying a flick on the Blu-ray drive or getting work done, especially with the lights turned down low. The 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution makes mainstream applications plenty easy to work in. Be sure to keep headphones handy, though: Despite the unit's subwoofer, to me it sure didn't sound like a Blu-ray movie was playing.

On the bright side, if you like shiny things, you'll love the dv7t. The lid and lower casing are black, but inside it resembles a slab of highly polished steel topped off with a similarly finished keyboard and icy-white status lights. It's so reflective that you can see yourself in the wrist rest, quite handy for surreptitious spinach-stuck-in-teeth and makeup checks. The keys gleam like pricey flatware, and even feel cool to the touch. Maneuvering about the keyboard is just as smooth, thanks to the great layout, the wide mirrored touchpad, and the dedicated number pad. The fingerprint reader is completely and conveniently out of the way in its right-bottom-corner location.

I only wish that the rigid mouse buttons depressed a little farther into the case, and that HP's volume swipe were better behaved. Though it's always a pleasure to use HP's signature one-touch QuickPlay media button for directly launching a movie and music menu and its forward and backward controls, HP still hasn't ironed all of the kinks out of its touch-sensitive controls. Getting the mute control working took a hard punch. The cranky volume swipe would lower but not raise volume--which, unlike movie sound, is quite loud and pleasing with CDs and MP3s. (We've had the opposite problem--the volume swipe raising but not lowering sound--on other Pavilions.)

If you can overlook those little problems, the dv7t is a handsome, fast unit. For our review it was nicely configured with a 400GB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, and Windows Vista Home Premium. And if you're looking to replace a desktop, it's a better candidate than most other big notebooks because of its proprietary left-side connection for HP's xb3000 expansion base. Though the base is an expensive add-on, it incorporates a screen stand, a third hard-drive bay, far better speakers, and a wireless keyboard and mouse for a complete desktop experience.

Forget the peripherals right now, though. Without the docking station, the dv7t slightly stumbles as an end-all, be-all entertainment unit. If you're looking for the whole package, consider Toshiba's Qosmio line of massive desktop replacement PCs. They're hardly portable, but the Qosmios (or is that Qosmii for plural?) have consistently incorporated terrific audio into their designs. That said, thanks to its beefy new CPU, HP's powerhouse sails through performance tests and whips the current competition. If speed is what matters to you, the Pavilion dv7 has it in spades.

source : PCWORLD

At first glance, the Inspiron Mini 9, Dell's entry into the mini-notebook category, looks like what you might get if you left a notebook from Dell's full-size Studio line of laptops in the dryer too long. But the sub-$500 Mini 9 carries a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a solid-state drive, making it a good starter machine for basic computing at a reasonable price.

Our test configuration, priced at $474, included Windows XP Home and an 8GB solid-state drive; a 4GB version of the Mini 9 ships with Linux Ubuntu 8.04. The 8GB drive doesn't leave you much open space once the operating system and the preinstalled software (which includes Microsoft Works) are accommodated. For $40 more, you can upgrade to a 16GB drive, but then you've crossed the magic $500 threshold. One feature that is missing here--but is present in the Acer Aspire One--is an additional SD slot to allow users to insert a second SD Card, format it, and use it as another hard disk.

Working without two SD Card slots, we found that our WorldBench 6 test suite required more space than the Inspiron Mini 9's drive could spare. Since we couldn't run our benchmark tests on the Mini 9, we can't directly compare its performance with that of competing mini-notebooks like the MSI Wind NB U100. We do know that the Mini 9 loads Windows in about 30 seconds and fires up Microsoft Works in 8 seconds. Also, it can copy more than an album's worth of music (77MB) in about 7 seconds. In short, it falls in line with what we've seen from other mini-notebooks packing an Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and Windows. We'll update this review when we obtain more-precise performance results.

The Mini 9 performed well in our battery life tests. Its four-cell battery ran for about 3 hours, 34 minutes--far better the three-cell battery of the MSI Wind, which lasted just 2 hours, 24 minutes.

As its name suggests, the Inspiron Mini 9 is tiny. It measures 1.07 by 9.13 by 6.77 inches--barely enough room to accommodate the 8.9-inch screen--and weighs about 2.28 pounds.

The glossy 1024-by-600-resolution display looks reasonably sharp and reproduces color extremely well. Unfortunately, if you don't view it from precisely the right angle, the screen looks a little dim. You can adjust the angle, but you may still find yourself contorting into ergonomic stress positions in order to get an optimal view.

All of the alphanumeric keys on the Mini 9's keyboard are large enough to make cranking out a document easy. But everything else either gets scrunched (as the Tab, Shift, and Caps Lock keys do) or assigned to an unfamiliar location. For instance, the apostrophe key slides down to a spot by the space bar, and the function keys disappear altogether, replaced by combos. An empty bit of real estate lies between the keyboard and the edge nearest the display, but Dell chose not to fill it with shortcut keys. That said, if you can retrain your brain to know where a couple of wayward buttons are positioned, you'll find that the keyboard is quite good. Similarly, the mousepad is set to just the right sensitivity, and the buttons are firmly in place.

The front-mounted speaker, located just below the display, came across as a little hollow. In this department, the Mini 9 falls behind Asus's $650 Eee 1000H 80G XP.

The Mini 9 is otherwise packed with the usual arsenal of current mini-notebook specs: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA out, an ethernet jack, an SD Card slot, and headphone and mic jacks. Our test model had Bluetooth and a 1.3-megapixel Webcam; both are extra-cost options.

The Mini 9 includes two handy additions that make it stand above the competition. First, accessible through the Start menu, is Dell's Support Center--a one-stop app for system information and performance tweaking. When you're online the Support Center also serves as a glorified link hub to different parts of Dell's support site for manuals, patches, and quick fixes. Second is a free, base-level account (good for 2GB of storage) with Box.Net's online file storage service.

Dell has crafted a solid mini-laptop that's good for kids and has plenty to offer anyone looking for an on-the-go system. The Inspiron Mini 9 isn't perfect, but it does offer a terrific design and a good price. I would have a tough time choosing this over Acer's Aspire One, but Dell's first venture into the world of mini-notebooks has produced a worthy competitor.

source : PCWORLD

The ASUS G50Vt-X1 is an "affordable" gaming notebook available through BestBuy for a low price of $1,249. Priced and configured to compete against other popular notebooks such as the Gateway FX series of notebooks, ASUS is taking aim at this new market segment. Once reserved for notebooks cost well over $2,000, we are seeing more and more companies try to get as low as possible in this slow economy. In this review we see how well the ASUS G50V does in the latest games such as Left 4 Dead and find out if it deserves a place at your next LAN party.

Specifications:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 3MB L2 cache)
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS with 512MB of GDDR3 discrete video memory
15.6” WXGA Glossy LCD (1366x768)
Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) SP1
4GB (4096MB) DDR2 Memory (2 x 2048MB modules)
320GB 7200RPM Seagate HD
8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW with LightScribeTechnology
Integrated 1.3 Megapixel Web Cam
6-Cell 11.1v 4800mAh battery, 120w power supply
Size: 15.4" x 10.5 x 1.4-1.7"
Weight: 7lbs 1oz
Warranty: 1 Year

Build and Design

The ASUS G50Vt-X1 is designed with gamers in mind, having a extravagant lid graphics and LED accents. The LEDs can be setup through software to blind in various patterns or even give an indication of system activity. The exterior shell has a glossy black finish with blue graphic overlays, while the brighter silver finish. Touch sensitive media buttons are outlined by blue LED’s underneath the LCD paired up with a cool OLED mini-display. Blue LED’s are also used to outline the touchpad, almost reaching the critical level of too many blue lights around the notebook.

Build quality is above average, with generous use of thick plastic. The body and screen lid feel tough and resist flexing when carrying the notebook around. Pressing firmly on the back of the display doesn’t produce any ripples, keeping the screen safe even when being tossed around in transit. The painted surfaces don’t seem as scratch resistant as the HP Imprint or Toshiba Fusion finishes, but it did hold up well during our review.

For gamers interested in upgrading components inside the notebook, they will be glad to know that all serviceable part are easily accessed through a single panel on the bottom. This exposes the processor, video card, RAM, wireless card, and hard drive. While a "warranty void if removed" sticker is on display, it is only for the processor and video card heatsink assembly.

Display

The 15.6-inch display borders on average to below average for a gaming rig, with poor contrast and very limited viewing angles. Playing Left 4 Dead in dark scenes left me cranking the brightness inside the menu to see anything going on. The viewing angle sweet spot was so narrow that even at the perfect screen tilt, either the top was starting to wash out or the bottom started to invert. With the screen being the most important part of any gaming rig, so you can work with teammates or kill opponents before they kill you, this is a big downside.

Contrast and black levels were also lacking, with black showing up as a washed out grey. Colors were decent when you were in the viewing angle sweet spot, but quickly inverted if you tilted the screen forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were better, staying true to steeper angles.

Mini Display

The ASUS G50Vt also offers a mini display to show memory or processor usage, as well as showing email or instant messages as they come in. This helps you keep on top of things at work, even if you are in an empty conference room gaming away. The display color is a blue-green with a fixed brightness. It was easy to read, but it could have been slightly larger.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full-size keyboard on the ASUS G50Vt was comfortable to type on and also gave you a full numpad off to the side. With the extended width of the 16:9 display, many manufacturers are taking use of the added space to cramp very large keyboards. Key spacing was excellent and it took very little time to adapt to the layout coming from my ThinkPad. The typing surface is a glossy textured surface, giving the keys a nice smooth feel with just a bit of traction to keep your fingertips in the right spot. Individual key action is smooth with a soft click when fully pressed. It wasn’t the quietest keyboard we have ever reviewed, but as long as you don’t hammer on the keys in a classroom you should be unnoticed in a quiet area.

The Synaptics-based touchpad is fairly large, and centered under the letter portion of the keyboard. It has a matte finish which is easy to slide around on and worked well for mild gaming on the notebook (usually I fight by external mouse). The sensitivity was great, making precise moves in games easy. The touchpad buttons are large, but don’t give that much tactile feedback. Each button has a shallow throw and gives an audible click when pressed.

Performance

Gaming was a breeze with 4GB of system memory, an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, and above all else an NVIDIA 9800M GS graphics card. Games like Left 4 Dead or Half-Life 2: Episode 2 played at very high framerates. Left 4 Dead on the highest settings stayed between 70-80FPS during most scenes, only dipping to the mid 30’s under a heavy flood of zombies. HL2:EP2 was even better, staying above 100FPS under most sections, dipping to the low 70’s in active areas. Under normal activity such as typing a document or browsing the web, the ASUS G50Vt had no problem keeping up. Little lag was seen outside of game loading with the 7200RPM hard drive, which also helped with fast boot and shutdown times.

Synthetic benchmark scores were very good, although not as high as the Gateway P-7811FX. This was the case even when overclocking the G50Vt, which only marginally improved scores and performance.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, this processor benchmark program is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, it measures the amount of time to run a set amount of calculations

Ports and Features

The G50Vt has a good layout of ports, offering four USB ports, an eSATA connection, LAN, HDMI and VGA, Firewire, and digital/analog audio hookups. It also featured a ExpressCard/54 slot and 8-in-1 card reader. A TV antenna hookup was also present on the side, but our model was not equipped with an internal tuner to make use of it.


Front: Wireless On/Off


Rear: Kensington lock slot, one USB, LAN, AC-Power


Left: VGA, System Vent, one USB, Antenna, eSATA, HDMI, ExpressCard/54, 8-in-1 card reader


Right: Audio hookups, two USB, Optical drive

Speakers and Audio

The Altec Lansing speakers sounded average, with weak bass and midrange, but adequate volume levels. For gaming the audio is fine for knowing when enemies are approaching, but the channel separation was not that good for knowing which direction they were coming from. I would have liked to see larger speakers, similar to what Toshiba uses on the A305 series notebook.

For most gaming I highly recommend a good pair of headphones, which let you hear the quieter footsteps of enemies around you. Another added benefit is the louder volume levels and the "private" gaming capabilities where you can stealthy slaughter zombies even in a quiet lecture hall.

Battery Life

With the screen brightness set to 60 percent, wireless active, and the Vista power profile set to "Balanced" the ASUS G50Vt managed 2 hours and 19 minutes on the 6-cell battery. While most gaming rigs do poorly on these types of test given the substantial power draw of the highend graphics card, some include a larger battery to overcome this. The Gateway P-7811 FX used a larger 9-cell battery and even with a 17" WUXGA screen managed 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Acer's first Aspire One mini-notebook was a Linux-based model that impressed us despite its modest components. Now the Windows XP Home version of Aspire One is here, packed with a larger hard drive and more RAM. Though it isn't superswift, the latest Aspire One is a fine machine at a fantastic price.

The sizes and prices of models in the mini-notebooks category continue to escalate, but the Aspire One comes in at just $349. That's $100 less than the next-lowest-priced XP-based model, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Acer's well-constructed, elegant entry measures 9.8 by 6.7 by 1.1 inches, roughly the same size as the IdeaPad S10. It's significantly lighter than the S10, though, at 2.3 pounds versus 3.6 pounds.

The XP-based Aspire One retains the physical profile, excellent keyboard, and small but crisp 8.9-inch screen found on the Linux-based model. Significant changes lie beneath the surface, however: A 120GB hard-disk drive replaces the Linux model's paltry 8GB flash drive. An SD Card slot for additional storage supplements the unit's 5-in-1 card reader. The system also bulks up to 1GB of RAM (the Linux model had 512MB). And yet the price is virtuallly unchanged.

Unfortunately, the Aspire One earned a mark of just 34 on our PC World Test Center's WorldBench 6 tests, putting it toward the back of the pack of Atom-based mini-notebooks (whose scores have hovered around 36). The Windows-based Aspire One did easily outpace HP's 2133, whose Via C-7M CPU led it to an anemic 26; but it fell well short of the Lenovo S10's surprising 41.

Even worse, the Aspire One's three-cell battery lasted for just 2 hours, 16 minutes. A six-cell battery costs an extra $100, which negates the Aspire One's price advantage.

I also have a design complaint: The mouse buttons flanking the touchpad are mounted vertically instead of horizontally--an unconventional approach that makes navigating documents unnecessarily difficult.

A less significant issue is the Aspire One's software bloat: Our test system came preinstalled with (among other items) Adobe Air, Acrobat, a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office, McAfee Security Center, and Intervideo's WinDVD (with the MPEG-2 codec for video playback).

I hope that Acer notices what Lenovo did with the IdeaPad S10. Though that machine went the minimalist route, it offered a thoughtful system recovery tool that lets you set restore points and backups to CD (after you attach an external optical drive). The Aspire One's threadbare recovery management software amounts to little more than a reset switch: no restore points, just the ability to institute a full system recovery or to reinstall some of the unnecessary software.

Despite these shortcomings, the Aspire One is a fine little machine. If you need more hard drive headroom or slightly speedier performance, Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 may be a better choice. But Acer's Aspire One is one of the best category bargains around. Just stay near a power outlet or invest in the extra six-cell battery.

source : PCWORLD

Lenovo keeps thinking small. Recently the company delivered slim ultraportables such as the ThinkPad X200 and IdeaPad U110. Now it's jumping into the mini-notebook scene with the impressive IdeaPad S10. Despite its "mini" status, the S10 manages to house some big-boy features.

The S10's tiny, 9.8-by-7.3-by-0.9-inch frame is roughly the size of Acer's Aspire One. But while the Aspire One's screen measures only 8.9 inches, the S10 offers a relatively roomy 10.2-inch, 1024-by-600-resolution display. It's crisp and easily viewable at various angles, even though it isn't necessarily the brightest screen around.

This micro machine also houses the largest hard drive we've seen on a mini-notebook to date: Our model came with a 5400-rpm, 160GB platter-based hard disk. That's more than enough storage to accommodate Windows XP Home and the unit's minimal preinstalled software. The hard drive, though, is the most likely reason the S10 weighs a somewhat hefty 3.6 pounds--almost as much as a ThinkPad X200.

More impressive is how this model performs under pressure. The S10 has the same 1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM as most of the other mini-notebooks we've seen (such as the Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee 1000H 80G XP), yet it beats them all in performance. The IdeaPad S10 earned a score of 41 on the PC World Test Center's WorldBench 6 suite; it's hardly a speed demon, but it's fairly fast when you consider that the nearest competitor, with the same guts, received only a 37.

The S10 falls short in battery life, though. Its three-cell battery lasts only 2.5 hours before giving out. Although it does a little better than Acer's Aspire One, both lag behind other Atom-based mini-notebooks we've recently tested.

Even though this model's good-size keyboard doesn't match the luxurious tactile response of a ThinkPad, the S10's keys deliver one of the better experiences among the mini-notebooks we've seen. Put the S10 side by side with the MSI Wind and Eee 1000H, however, and you'll see that the S10's keys are a little scrunched by comparison. Regrettably, the mouse buttons are the clacky, tacky type; each button sinks too much and feels a little too loose.

The S10's speaker fares no better than those on most mini-notebooks: It delivers substandard sound that's barely audible since the maximum audio setting is fairly low. That's a slight disappointment since this model's sizable hard drive and satisfactory screen make it a good potential video and music player.

Lenovo wins some points for providing a bloat-free machine, and for supplying a handy recovery application, CyberLink OneKey Recovery 6.0. That app allows you to create backups, as well as to set partitions and restore points--a more flexible backup option than simply restoring the PC to factory-fresh condition. Lenovo even goes so far as to place a OneKey panic button at the top of the keyboard. It's a nice touch, and it's a nod to ThinkPad loyalists, who might consider it a "lite" version of the ThinkVantage button.

If you're looking for a big, beefy hard drive and surprisingly sprightly performance from a mini-notebook, the IdeaPad S10 is a solid pick. If the S10's slightly cramped keyboard and loose mouse buttons are deal breakers for you, Asus's Eee 1000H would suit you much better. Though the Eee 1000H has a little more girth, it will definitely get you through your next business trip.

source : PCWORLD

Ever since the Eee PC 4G opened up the mini-notebook market last year, Asus has been pumping out different flavors of the Eee, including versions of the original with XP and models sporting slightly larger screens and a multitouch pad.

The newest member of the Eee family offers the same Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and 80GB hard disk as MSI's Wind NB U100. It has a 10-inch display and measures 10.5 by 7.5 by 1.5 inches (about the size of a hardcover book, and only slightly larger than the MSI Wind). The Eee 1000H is also fairly heavy for a mini-notebook, weighing about 3.6 pounds including the six-cell battery packed underneath. (On the plus side, the battery lasted about 4 hours, 32 minutes in our tests.) With the Eee 1000H's design the way it is, you might as well call it an ultraportable--in heft, if not performance.

The Atom processor may be passable for last-gen apps and small devices, but it's downright mopey if you're hoping to run Vista. And it isn't exactly a speed demon in XP, either: On our WorldBench 6 tests, the Eee 1000H received a score of 37, a point higher than MSI's Wind got. For the most part, though, this model's performance is consistent for what we're finding with XP-based mini-notebooks running an Atom processor and 1GB of RAM.

One thing that sets the Eee 1000H apart from the other mini-notebooks we've seen is its spacious, comfortable keyboard. I'd probably put it on a par with what you'd expect to find on a full-featured ultraportable laptop. The keyboard, coupled with an array of useful shortcut keys, makes this mini-notebook very easy to use. One key turns off the monitor, another switches the resolutions, the third changes the performance settings, and the last is user configurable. And the keys aren't the only things that work well: The touchpad offers a sensual feel and is fluidly responsive, and the mouse buttons are firm, metallic, and well mounted.

The display's native 1024 by 600 resolution looks reasonably sharp on the 10-inch screen. With a quick toggle of the shortcut key, you can pop through a number of "optimized" resolutions. The only real use I've found for the resolution gear-shifter is that it's helpful for trying to fit some oddly formatted Web pages to the screen; otherwise, you can always output video through the VGA port. A firm, flush bezel surrounding the screen and the 1.3-megapixel camera securely locks everything in place. The case has a smooth yet slightly textured feel.

Suprisingly, the Eee 1000H's audio sounded crisp, and richer than I had expected. Maybe that's the result of Dolby Sound Room technology (which Dolby says extends the speakers' bass response up an octave, and widens the sound space that the speakers project). Elvis's "Suspicious Minds" rang clear; Run DMC's "Walk This Way" sounded a little tinny, but good enough that I was able to forgo plugging in headphones. I'd even say that the Eee 1000H can fill up a small room (or office cubicle) with tunes.

One other unexpected twist: Asus preinstalls some handy software, including Microsoft Works, StarOffice, and Skype.

In other respects, the Eee 1000H provides exactly what you might expect from a mini-notebook in expandability and layout. It includes three USB ports, an SD Card slot, VGA-out, headphone/microphone jacks, and an ethernet jack.

I liked the thorough manual, too. It's funny, really: Many makers of high-end notebooks don't even bother--simply tossing a PDF in the box--and yet this well-laid-out book covers all the bases.

Asus' Eee 1000H is among the leaders in the mini-notebook market. This model offers a sizable keyboard, a solid screen, and a clean and comfortable layout, just beating out the MSI Wind. Buyers beware, however: It's a device that's roughly the size of an ultraportable yet has half an ultraportable's power (albeit at more than half an ultraportable's price).

source : PCWORLD